CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS (France), Oct 27: Two armed men set fire to a bus in a rundown Paris suburb on Friday – the anniversary of two deaths which triggered the worst riots last year to hit the French capital in nearly 40 years.

A police source said the two hooded men boarded the bus in front of a train station in the Seine-Saint-Denis suburb in the early evening and ordered around 15 passengers and the driver to get off before setting it alight.

Four buses have been attacked in poor suburbs around the capital since Sunday and police have said violence could spiral out of control once again.

Earlier, hundreds of people marched in silence through Clichy-sous-Bois, where the riots started last year.

“You can really feel the anger and the suffering of the people who live in Clichy-sous-Bois,” said Soumeya Ata, who travelled to the suburb north of Paris from the southwestern town of Pau to attend the commemoration.

Around 1,000 mainly young people from immigrant families trooped through the high-rise suburb where the riots erupted after the electrocution deaths of Bouna Traore and Zyed Benna. Witnesses said the teenagers died while fleeing police.

Marchers, many sporting T-shirts with the slogan “Dead for Nothing”, passed the electrical substation where the two died. Their families wept as they laid flowers at its gate.

Organisers called for quiet reflection to mark the tragedy. Some television crews pulled out after they were threatened by local youths.—Reuters